To the previous information I would add the following:

(1) A headright does not necessarily mean that the
person for whose passage was paid was an indentured
servant. I seriously doubt that Adam Thorowgood was an
"indentured servant," although he is described as a
"servant" in the muster of Edward Waters in Jan-Feb
1624/5, having arrived in the "Charles" in 1621.
Indeed, he was described as a "gentleman" when he
bought 150A on the north side of Hampton Roads on
December 30, 1626. His status was such that he married
Sarah Offley, who was (as has been noted) the daughter
of one Lord Mayor of London and granddaughter of
another. Her father invested more than L100 in the
Virginia Company ca. 1618/19, perhaps in response to
the major change of administration of the Company that
occurred then. I suspect Adam's status was akin to a
clerk or aide-de-camp to Waters while Adam got
acclimated to Virginia (going through one full year's
cycle and surviving the climate and other threats to
life).

(2) Headrights were also awarded for persons merely
visiting in the colonies -- it was the transit for
which the headright was earned, even though not
everyone transported stayed.

(3) Headrights were also fungible, much like bearer
bonds are today. They could be sold (and often were)
by simple endorsement on the face or the back and
sometimes passed through several hands before being
redeemed. Ship captains also acquired headrights for
transporting individuals for free, often to fill out
the passenger spaces on their ships for later
redemption (investments) and/or to provide a
sufficient number of souls to meet contract
requirements for which the captain had been advanced
funds by a planter in Virginia.

jc



--- Douglas Deal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Barbara's response nicely summarizes the
> difficulties inherent in using
> land patents and headrights for genealogical
> purposes. The larger
> historical significance of the system is pretty
> clear, though. The idea
> was to reward--with land grants--those immigrants
> who paid for their own
> passage to the colony and for that of others,
> whether family members,
> servants, or (for several decades, at least) slaves,
> at the rate of 50
> acres per person transported (self plus others).
> Those whose passage was
> thus paid did not get the land, except for a spell
> in certain other
> colonies, such as Maryland where it was part of a
> servant's freedom dues
> (until 1683, if I remember correctly). For most of
> the colonies,
> including Virginia, the headright system rewarded
> the wealthiest with
> even more wealth. In Virginia, it helped build a
> landed elite that,
> conveniently, was rewarded for bringing more labor
> into the colony.
> Political conflict in the decades before and after
> 1700 revolved, much
> of the time, around the abuses and inequalities that
> the practices of
> land distribution entailed. Anthony Parent's recent
> book, Foul Means,
> treats some of this story in detail.
>
> Doug Deal
> History/SUNY-Oswego
>
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